Certain noisemakers not illegal

Items marked 'flammable' but exempted in ban

This package of noisemakers is exempt from the city and county fireworks ban.
Torin Halsey/Times Record News

A family-fun variety pack full of "TNT" marked noisemakers on area store shelves aren't illegal in Wichita County, but the county's leader said Monday even the most innocuous items can spark a fire, even a rock.

County Judge Woody Gossom said while the items are legal, they can be dangerous in these dry conditions.

"A sparkler (which is not in the family pack) can be hotter than a cigarette thrown out the car window. A sparkler can cause just as much damage," Gossom said, adding that anything with the tiniest spark can cause problems.

With the dry conditions we have, anything is possible, he said, recounting a story he heard — from where he cannot remember — of a golfer causing a fire by simply chipping out of the rough and hitting his club against a rock.

"Twenty acres burned before they could get that fire out."

Wichita County Commissioners voted last week to ban the sale of all fireworks through July 5, something Gossom hopes to extend beyond the holiday with paperwork he has prepared for the governor.

"We are looking at some other things to try to control this under the disaster declaration," Gossom said. "Everyone from Austin to here is scratching their heads wondering what we can do."

After commissioners last week banned the sale of all fireworks within the county, several readers of the Times Record News questioned the pack of "pop-its" and "poppers" sold at such discount stores as Walmart and Sam's Club.

A box full of noisemakers sells at Sam's Club for about $23 after taxes and contains "more than 500 pieces," including pop-its and various poppers. The items are marked "flammable" but fall under the exemption.

The Texas statute detailing the exemptions says, in part, individual caps cannot contain more than 25/100ths of a grain of explosive composition, and contain "a propelling or expelling charge consisting of a mixture of sulfur, charcoal and potassium nitrate."

Gossom would feel more comfortable "if we had better laws," he said. "I'm not sure why my colleagues (other county judges and commissioners) want to cut the baby in half," referring to a ban on the possession but not the sale.

One retailer saw the pop-its as a legal alternative to the ban on fireworks.

Alan Donaldson, Walmart store manager on Lawrence Road, said, "The sale of fireworks has been banned in Wichita Falls for as long as I've been here, 10 years or so, so we basically sell the poppers, which just pop, make noise, or shoot out confetti."

When the disaster declaration passed, banning the sale of fireworks within the county, Donaldson said he sent a letter to the home office in Bentonville, Ark., to clarify that what he had in stock was outside the bounds of the ban. "Just to be sure," he said.

The Lawrence Road store hasn't had a huge sales rush on the legal poppers but expects purchases will pick up as July 4 approaches.

"People did start to call after the ban, to see what we had," Donaldson said.